Dear First name / friend
It's hard to live well. Our modern problems are just that: problems for and from a modern world. We live in an environment that encourages disconnect - both from each other and ourselves. It can feel difficult - and sometimes exhausting - to go against the grain and “live well”. It takes time and effort to separate your recycling and take your soft plastics to the nearest big supermarket, to look for brands that are in alignment with your values and to decline the cakes at work. It is difficult to exercise as much as we need to; it's difficult to eat as well as we're being told to; it's more difficult to fight anxiety and depression when the fast-paced nature of our lives is feeding directly into that.
Yes, societal, political, governmental change could make all the above things easier, but that's not going to happen any time soon. Everything becomes harder to see, murkier to observe, when there's so much going on. I saw a gentleman in clinic the other day and I couldn't work out whether he looked underweight or whether he was actually a healthy weight: it's all relative and I'd lost my yardstick.
We were talking yesterday in GP teaching about neurodiversity and how we can support neurodivergent doctors. If we lived in a not-neurotypical world, we would not have to make suitable adaptations for those who identify as neurodiverse. What I mean is, it's our environment that is problematic, not the individual. There's a principle in psychiatry called
nidotherapy which recognises the need to harmonise the patient with the environment, rather than it being the other way round. Would we need to medicate individuals with melatonin to help with sleep if we all were exercising and getting the sun on our skin for a good hour every morning?
I gave a short teaching session yesterday about the huge impact diet can have on our moods. In the study I was talking about, the
SMILES trial,
33% participants were in
remission from their moderate depression after they followed a
Mediterranean diet. (Of course, I'm giving this talk whilst the med school have provided packaged croissants for everyone.) My point is this: our environment isn't helping us, so take what you can into your own hands: fill your home with food that nourishes and supports your mental health, and not with food that doesn't. We live in an increasingly obesogenic environment that makes it incredible difficult to choose well - I acknowledge that. But, as the saying goes:
life is tough, but you are tougher.
Mindful tip: How can you alter your environment to work with you rather than against you? Perhaps by reducing screens and white light and opting instead for ambient low-lighting and candlelight you will find your sleep improves. By only bringing foods into your home which support your microbiome, you would no doubt find your mental health improves. The ‘nido' in ‘nidotherapy’ comes from the Latin for 'nest’, so how can you work towards creating a therapeutic nest for yourself and your family?
